JLA: Justice For All TPB
Dec. 17th, 2006 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2I will confess that I usually find JLA books frantic in their approach (not that I have read that many, though) and bewildering in their array of characters - and, sadly, this one was no exception.
It is a bit like an arms race, I guess. If you have the biggest, baddest baddies beaten by the biggest, bestest goodies, then you have to have even biggester, baddester baddies beaten by .... I'm sure you know where this is going! And that's what this book feels like - a frantic maelstrom of escalation to the point of silliness - red versus blue (no, wait, not that Red vs Blue!) which is resolved by making purple. Shoot me! Now! Please!
Look, this book was visually gorgeous with great colours and lines and textures even though a number of artists worked on the stories. Many of the stories had great ideas at their kernel. The problem was that, because of the "arms race" (see above), they were resolved in ever expansive, grander (and, it has to be said, sometimes sillier) ways. I liked the start of the General Eiling / Ultra-marines story but it spun out for me soon after. I liked the Spectre's "prison" and how richly that was realised but the resolution? Meh! I liked the start of the "No Man's Land" story but again, it spun out soon after.
I think it's this - this is exactly the enormous overblown superhero (sorry, "metahuman") story that goes right over the top for me. Just a personal preference, I guess, because this is certainly a story (or rather stories) on a grand cosmic scale but just not working for me!
It is a bit like an arms race, I guess. If you have the biggest, baddest baddies beaten by the biggest, bestest goodies, then you have to have even biggester, baddester baddies beaten by .... I'm sure you know where this is going! And that's what this book feels like - a frantic maelstrom of escalation to the point of silliness - red versus blue (no, wait, not that Red vs Blue!) which is resolved by making purple. Shoot me! Now! Please!
Look, this book was visually gorgeous with great colours and lines and textures even though a number of artists worked on the stories. Many of the stories had great ideas at their kernel. The problem was that, because of the "arms race" (see above), they were resolved in ever expansive, grander (and, it has to be said, sometimes sillier) ways. I liked the start of the General Eiling / Ultra-marines story but it spun out for me soon after. I liked the Spectre's "prison" and how richly that was realised but the resolution? Meh! I liked the start of the "No Man's Land" story but again, it spun out soon after.
I think it's this - this is exactly the enormous overblown superhero (sorry, "metahuman") story that goes right over the top for me. Just a personal preference, I guess, because this is certainly a story (or rather stories) on a grand cosmic scale but just not working for me!
